Peruvian-American writer Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk in Circles, talks with NBC Latino about identity, writing in English and Spanish, and US patriotism. He says:

There’s something that gets lost in the immigration debate here in the United States: well, they don’t talk about how patriotic immigrants are. How much appreciation many immigrant families have for the opportunities that the United States has afforded them. So it wasn’t that we were sitting around thinking, “Oh, we’re so lucky to be here.” But there was a real patriotic strain in our family, and at least among the Peruvians that I grew up with, that was not unique.

The New York Times also profiled Alarcón and discussed how he navigates two cultures: "'I think I’m an American writer writing about Latin America, and I’m a Latin American writer who happens to write in English.'”